In recent years, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of applications using voice communications. For instance, the Internet has allowed individuals to make telephone calls through a computer, or to talk to other people participating in an online multiplayer game.
Traditionally, an individual who wishes to such voice application usually use headsets with close talking boom microphones. However, prolonged use of such a microphone can be very inconvenient to an individual. An individual wearing a supposed comfortable microphone can find the prolonged use of such a microphone uncomfortable. Alternatively, microphones can be built into a computer or monitor, or may be an external device which is attached to a computer or monitor. Due to the distance between such microphones and the user, such microphones must be able to receive input from a greater area. As a consequence, such microphones are also subject to picking up increased background noise.
Accordingly, there is a need for a high fidelity far field noise canceling microphone that possesses good background noise cancellation and that can be used in any type of noisy environment, especially in environments where a lot of music and speech is present as background noise (as in a game arena or internet café), and a microphone that does not need the user to have to deal with positioning the microphone from time to time. Therefore, an object of the present invention provide for an integrated array of microphones utilizing an adaptive beam forming algorithm. Such an invention does not require an individual to wear a microphone headset and allows a large degree of freedom. Further, such a microphone array allows a user to electronically steer the microphone's beam, or the area in which it accepts voice input, as opposed to having to physically steer the microphone array.